Ivan Smagghe

Ivan Smagghe stands at the crossroads between trendy scene hype and unflinching musical integrity. Since his earliest days on the Parisian electronic underground - working in record shops, as a music journalist, playing parties - he's shunned the obvious trends and embraced his own ideas choosing to work with a wide variety of close collaborators and develop the projects BlackStrobe and Volga Select. Long associated with the electro house sound, there's much more to his DJing and production than this particular niche. His daily leftfield eclectic show on Radio Nova allowed him to indulge his wide tastes, and spawned his Kill The DJ parties, label and compilations. He can currently be found touring as a DJ, releasing new material on Kill The DJ and appearing at festivals with the live presentation of Blackstrobe.

This is a wild ride through deep sub bass, twinkling electro and growling guitars. Ivan opens deep and dubby with Aswefall, the acid rifts of Audion and I-Robot's bleeping acid 'Frau'. He moves through the quirky melodies and enticing snares of Ada's Booka Shade re-rub, before stepping up a gear into the bumping acid electro of Inaqui Marin, with throbbing basslines from Michael Mayer's 'Heiden' and Lopazz's dark vocals. DJ Koze comes on strong with clicks and loops, while [T]ekel rumbles through to The Kills snarling guitars and commanding vocals. Flipping it straight to dark and druggy there's Konrad Black's distinctive techno groove, as Ivan weaves through Fabrizio Mammarella's jackin' funk and the compelling throbs of Audion's 'Just Fucking'. To end, there's bristling electro from Serge Auto and the final disco tinged crescendo of Joakim's excellent Italo Dub remix of Poni Hoax.